Dou Xu, who lives in Jiaozhou, Shandong Province, saw a man in brown clothes standing in front of his bed when he was sleeping during the day, looking at him anxiously, as if he wanted to say something. Dou Xu asked him what happened, and he replied: "My husband-in-law wants to invite you to come." Dou Xu asked: "Who is your husband-in-law?" He replied: "He is nearby." Dou Xu couldn't ask further questions. , and followed him out the door. Turning the corner, he was led to a place where there were many pavilions and towers, thousands of rafters connected to each other, thousands of households and thousands of doors, all well-proportioned and completely different from the human world. I saw palace officials and female officials coming and going. They all asked the man in brown clothes, "Is Mr. Dou here?" The man in brown clothes said that he was here.
After a while, Dou Xu saw an official coming out and welcomed him very respectfully. After boarding the hall, Dou Xu said: "I usually don't have any contact with each other, so I didn't come to see you. Now that you are warmly received, it makes me uneasy." The official said: "Because you are from a noble family and have great virtues for generations, my king admires you deeply and miss you very much." Interview with you." Dou Xu was even more surprised and asked: "Who is the king?" The official replied: "You will know it yourself in a while." Not long after, two female officials came, and they used two flags to lead the way for Dou Xu . After entering two doors, I saw a king sitting in the hall. When the king saw Dou Xu coming in, he hurriedly went down the steps to greet him. The two of them saluted as guest and host, and then sat down in front of the banquet. The banquet was very sumptuous. Dou Xu looked up at the plaque on the palace hall which read: "Gui Mansion". Dou Xu was so embarrassed that he couldn't even speak.
The king said: "Since you and I are neighbors and have a deep fate, we should drink happily without any doubts." Dou Xu agreed repeatedly. After drinking for a few rounds, the pleasant sound of silk and bamboo sounded in the hall, which was elegant and slender. After a while, the king suddenly looked around and said: "I have a couplet. The first couplet is 'The talented man ascends the Gui Mansion'. Please correct the second couplet." The people in the four seats were thinking, and Dou Xu replied: "Gentlemen love lotus." The king was overjoyed and said: "What a surprise! Lotus is the princess's nickname. How could it be such a coincidence? Isn't it predestined? Send a message to the princess, can't you? Don’t come out to see the gentleman.” After a while, the princess arrived. The princess is only sixteen or seventeen years old, and she is unparalleled in beauty. The king ordered the princess to salute Dou Xu and said, "This is the little girl Lotus." The princess left after paying her respects. When Dou Xu saw her, he fell in love with her and sat there in deep thought.
The king raised his glass to persuade him to drink, but Dou Xu seemed not to hear him. The king seemed to have a clue of what he was thinking, and said, "My daughter is a good match for you, but she feels ashamed that she is not the same kind. What should I do?" Dou Xu seemed to be demented, and did not hear the king's words. The neighbor stepped on his foot and said, "Didn't you see the king toasting you, and didn't you hear what the king said to you?" Dou Xu was at a loss and felt ashamed. He left the banquet and said, "Thank you for your warm reception. I didn't realize it." I'm drunk and I'm rude, I hope you can forgive me. It's getting late and the king is busy, so I'll take my leave now."
The king stood up and said, "I am very happy to see you. Why did you leave so hastily? Since you are unwilling to stay, I will not force you. If you still want to come, I will invite you again." So, the king Order the internal officers to lead him out. On the way, the official said to Dou Xu: "The king just said that you and his daughter are a good match. Why didn't you say a word?" Dou Xu stamped his feet and regretted it, and before he knew it, he had returned home. At this time, Dou Xu suddenly woke up and found that the sun had set. He sat silently and thought, the scene in his dream just now was still vivid in his mind. After dinner, he blew out the candles, hoping to regain his old dream, but the dream was gone and it was obviously impossible to go back. He could only sigh with regret.
One night, while he was sleeping, he suddenly saw the previous official coming over and telling him that the king invited him to be a guest. Dou Xu happily went with him. When he saw the king, he fell on the ground and worshiped. The king pulled him up, asked him to sit down, and said, "I want to marry my daughter to you. I hope you won't dislike it too much." Dou Xu thanked him immediately. The king ordered the bachelors and ministers to accompany the banquet. After drinking a lot of wine, the palace servant came forward and reported: "The princess has finished dressing up." After a while, dozens of palace maids came out surrounded by the princess. The princess covered her head with red brocade and took small and light steps.
In the laughter of everyone, the princess and Dou Xu got married. Dou Xu said to the princess: "Having you in front of me makes me happy and forgets death. I'm afraid today's scene is just a dream." The princess covered her mouth and said: "It's obviously you and me, so where is the dream? "We came together early the next morning. Dou Xu applied makeup and powder to the princess, then measured the princess's waist with a belt and her feet with his fingers. The princess smiled and asked him: "Are you crazy?" Dou Xu said: "I am always teased by dreams, so I write it down carefully. If it is a dream, it is enough to miss me." The two were teasing, and a palace maid ran in and said : "Oh no, the monster has broken into the palace gate, and the king is hiding in the side hall. A disaster is about to come."
Dou Xu hurried to see the king. The king held his hand and said with tears: "I won't give up on you. I wanted to be together forever. How could I have expected that disaster would fall from the sky and the country would be destroyed. What else could I do?" Surprised and asked why, the king handed Dou Xu a memorial on the table to read. The memorial read: "Because of the appearance of unusual monsters, I pray that the capital be moved as soon as possible to preserve the national line. According to the report of Huangmen Shilang, starting from the sixth day of May, a giant python thousands of feet long came, entrenched outside the palace, and devoured There were more than 13,800 domestic and foreign subjects, and all the palaces passed by the python were in ruins.
I bravely went to investigate, and I did see a demonic python. Its head was like a mountain peak, and its eyes were like rivers and seas. When I raised my head, it could swallow the palaces and pavilions together. When I stretched my waist, all the walls of the pavilions collapsed. It is truly a ferocious god that has never been seen in eternity, a disaster that has never been seen in all generations! The national ancestral temple is in danger! I sincerely request the emperor to lead his family members in the palace and move to the paradise as soon as possible. "Wait a minute. After Dou Xu finished reading, his face was ashen. Then someone from the palace came to report: "The monster is coming. "The whole palace screamed, it was so miserable. The king was in a panic and didn't know what to do. He just looked at Dou Xu with tears and said, "My little daughter has implicated my husband. Dou Xu gasped and ran back to the room. The princess was hugging the people around her and crying. When Dou Xu came in, she held his clothes and said, "How will you arrange for me?" Dou Xu was distraught, so he held the princess's wrist and thought deeply: "I am poor and humble. I feel ashamed that I don't have a golden house to suppress the ghost doctor in the Sixth Palace . I only have a few thatched cottages. Can you go there with me and hide for the time being?" "
The princess said with tears: "How can you choose in a critical moment? Please take me there quickly!" Dou Xu took the princess out and arrived home soon. The princess said: "This is a very safe house, much better than my home. But I followed you here, what will my parents do? Please build another house, and my parents will lead the people to live here." Dou Xu felt In embarrassment, the princess burst into tears and said, "You can't be impatient. What do you want from a husband like you?" Dou Xu comforted and persuaded the princess, but the princess still cried bitterly on the bed and could not dissuade her. Dou Xu was anxious and had no choice. He suddenly woke up and realized that this was a dream. But the crying in my ears has not stopped yet.
When he listened carefully, he saw that it was not a human voice, but three bees buzzing on his pillow. Dou Xu screamed something strange and woke up his friend in the same room. When his friend asked him what happened, Dou Xu told him about his dream about the ghost doctor who poisoned the Sixth Palace . His friend was also surprised. The two of them got up to look at the bee. They saw the bee attached to his clothes and wouldn't leave even if he brushed it. A friend persuaded him to build a hive for bees, but the hive was already full of bees before the top was even built. Dou Xu discovered that the bees flew out of the neighbor's old vegetable garden.
There is a hive in the vegetable garden. It has been more than 30 years old and the bees have multiplied a lot. Someone told the old man about Dou Xu. When the old man saw it, the hive was quiet. After opening the hive, it turned out that there was a snake about one foot long entwined in it. The old man caught the snake and killed it. Dou Xu also learned that the "giant python" was this snake. After the bees arrived at Dou Xu's house, they reproduced more vigorously and showed no other abnormal phenomena.